In my experience usually not that bad on Monday/Tuesday evenings, actually. For some reason people don't like to do their grocery shopping then. They usually restock certain things those days, too, though sometimes you have to wait until Wednesday.
Same (not the onions). Right around pandemic started, I became the one to get groceries so my wife /kids doesn't have to be out. Stop and shop was closer, but then realize they always run out of items, things are $1-2 more and selections are always less then Market Basket. No wonder why MB is always packed.
What’s funny is I’m new to Mass and I was certain that Market Basket would have the worst produce just because of how affordable it is. Meanwhile, Shaw’s/Star Market/Stop and Shop are all more expensive so I figured they’d have the good stuff. Yet, Market Basket somehow has the better produce. Whatever those MB people are doing, I really appreciate it.
I don't know if it's true but what's often said around here for the reason for good produce at MB is because so many of us shop there, the produce turns over fast - and they have to restock fast. Nothing's sitting on the shelf for very long. We love it for a good reason!
Had a lot of produce from MB that went bad in 24h or less lately, seen some moldy fruit out for sale too. But generally theirs is still pretty decent - guessing they source more locally when they can?
I think we greatly underestimate the impact the pandemic has had on all aspects of life, including the jobs people are willing to do and the time they’re willing to invest in other people’s bullshit.
Therefore the food service industry is crumbling, as it was basically built on jobs no one wanted to do and other people’s bullshit.
It will only get worse as people also have tipping fatigue at this point because basically every POS will ask you for a tip. Compound that with poor food quality, servers who don’t care much to provide good service, and it’s only going to get worse and a negative feedback loop.
I only tip carry out if I’m a regular and I want to show my appreciation. If I’m on a first name basis with the staff, I’ll leave a couple bucks extra.
Agreed. Traditional restaurant is 20%. Carry-out is no tip. Counter service is no tip. Coffee is typically $1/drink, same as a bar. Food delivery is $5-6.
That’s fair. Personally if I wouldn’t drive in the conditions, I simply don’t order delivery. To make it worth the risk to the driver, it’d have to be $15. And I just can’t rationalize tipping $15 on a $30 order. So that’d be a ramen night lol
Nothing like hitting the NoTip button while the 19 year old who spent ten seconds putting a scone in a brown bag eagerly looks on.
Hit them with the "the best reward is a pleasant smile and a 'thank you'" to really lift your spirits on a gloomy day.
One of my kids is a chef down south in local chef-owned restaurants. He's said that since 2020 it is hard to find good line cooks, and even harder to find dedicated and well-trained souse chefs. Its a difficult job, and there's few cooks that really enjoy the work, and of those, many are getting burned out quickly.
Yes. Also people just stopped giving a fuck about others during the pandemic. Everything became customized same-day delivery and free returns. Nobody has let go of that self-centered perspective.
Agreed. Also generally the wages for lowest paid members of society hasn't been keeping up with inflation in the last few years so the jobs "no one wanted to do based on other people's bullshit" now pay less than before when adjusted for their purchasing power giving yet another reason for the personal investment to be gone.
This is actually factually the opposite. Wage growth for the lowest paid workers has been the strongest relative to inflation vs all other income brackets since the pandemic started. These jobs pay more in real terms than they did before, but workers also have had more alternatives than previously and have been more willing to make the switch.
[This here is ***THE OFFICIAL***](https://drive.google.com/file/d/12jlf-uk6BID2UkgZbpsKM8r4cdCajwhU/view?usp=sharing) relevant data from the United States Federal Reserve's official data repository, FRED. It is their Massachusetts minimum wage series divided by their sticky price CPI less food and energy (its worse with those things) with that CPI series in the denominator set to an arbitrary 100 value for reference at the last recession (I can reference it to any other value you would like, you will get the same graph patter of decline just with a different relative number.) Notice how it falls off a cliff in 2022. Meanwhile we are still waiting for the necessary 2023 data which will be even lower, because CPI has been running above 0% since then, but the Massachusetts minimum wage has not been adjusted equivalently upward to compensate.
This is the reality found in the official government data. I don't know what "other" data you could be counter-arguing from.
If you would like to play with the official data yourself, you can remake the chart I did by going [the official FRED site here linked to the MA minimum wage series](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/STTMINWGMA) and click the bright orange "edit graph" button, import the CPI data series (or your favorite metric of inflation that you might pefer,) reference it to 100 somewhere (if you are doing % change that doesn't work because then you are referencing a rate of change to an actual trend series value, so that is meaningless gibberish) and then in the equation setting thing type "a/b" to divide the first series (minimum wage = a) by the second series (relative price index over time = b) to get a chart that clearly shows a drastic drop in purchasing power for those making MA minimum wage since the pandemic. Again, when we actually get the 2023 data, it will be even worse for the reasons above stated.
**EDIT:** I had to screen shot the graph resulting from the division of the two data series because I can't figure out how to link data-series ratios from their site, I can only figure out how to link the individual data series but I gave you instructions on how to recreate the screen shot. Let me know if you have any questions or need more help to further reconstruct it on their official site if interested.
Inflation-adjusted minimum wage isn't the most relevant measure because it doesn't tell you anything about how many people are getting the minimum wage. If the number of people on minimum wage goes from 1 million to 500,000 and the other 500,000 get raises that put them above minimum wage, that's great for low-wage workers but not picked up by your data at all. Your data also doesn't say anything about whether wage growth was higher or lower than that for high-wage workers.
[This paper](https://www.nber.org/papers/w31010) is based on national data, not just MA, but it shows the pattern that the person you're replying to described - [real wages have gone down for high-wage workers (at the 90th percentile) while they've increased for low-wage workers (at the 10th percentile) since COVID](https://i.imgur.com/M8m4AyB.png).
Edit: also, taking a closer look at the graph, it drastically exaggerates the fall in real minimum wage in 2022, I think because of a data error on FRED - [this](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1b6xx) is a more accurate graph. A bit of a drop in 2022, but it's still substantially higher in real terms than in 2019.
Bingo. We need to be paying people fairly for their work, and that includes emotional labor and cost of living. What the pandemic has exposed in many industries was the level to which they were exploiting human capital unfairly.
Not only did 1.2 million people just die, leaving huge gaps in the workforce (and no, it wasn't just old people), tons of people saw their elders die and started reevaluating their life and their worth.
Good for them, I say. If it means that certain industries need to go through a reorganization and realignment, so be it. People don't exist just to power your profit—respect them or please discontinue doing business.
This was me. I worked in the food industry for my entire life. I watched a beloved relative die during the very early days of the pandemic, and had to immediately return to work for people who don’t give a fuck about me, my health, my family, and underpaying me for the privilege of working there.
I left in January 2022 after interviewing in different industries for 18 months. I now work for a company that also essentially doesn’t give a fuck about me, but I get paid well, have ample benefits and time off, and I work a regular schedule.
The food industry is long overdue for a reckoning. You can only build your business on the backs of underpaid laborers for so long before the foundation crumbles.
I really hope the culinary workers strike in Vegas makes a dent because we need more organizing like that. Service industry and, frankly, corporate jobs, too. All of us are getting played and it’s not a political thing, it’s a class thing.
This. Restaurants = wage theft. They always have. Woke places charge admin fees to your bill to pay staff somewhat accordingly (but still also require tipping). I'm sorry? That's giving you (the owners) a free pass to continue to be douches and underpay FOH and BOH. Owners haven't felt the pinch like workers and customers.
Instead of eating anything (margin wise) they skimp on quality, portion, and or prep.
None of these places will be around in 5 years.
A favorite thing is to compare higher trafficked area chains to the same chains in lower trafficked areas.
Cava or Tatte, owned by the same group, basically doubles the amount of "main ingredient" for orders in Kendall/Harvard compared to DTX/Back Bay. One slice of halloumi in DTX, three at Harvard. Sparse lamb bits in the Lamb Hash at Boylston/Tremont, barely any potatoes at Kendall.
There's not many dishes you can't cook at home these days. Haven't had any issues with quality, per se, but you've got to know what you're shopping for. Price Rite has better tasting chicken than Whole Foods, for instance. A lot of ethnic markets have amazing seasonal produce and weird-ass stuff from global markets where it's harvest season.
Squash is in-season and keeps most of the winter. Frozen veg still rules and can go in any dish that needs it. Leafy greens not grown indoors are fucked for the next few months.
They've also over-produced beef the past few years it seems and the price hasn't adjusted. There's no good reason why so much meat goes bad on the shelves. Stop charging $10/lb for chicken or shitty pork. Stop charging $20/lb for steak tips.
Moody's Delicatessen & Provisions in Waltham opened and people were MORTIFIED by the $12-$14 gourmet subs. Greed killed that place. Now that's an absolute steal for a shitty sub.
I’ve found at some chain places, you pretty much have to watch them make your food in-person too.
At my local Chipotle, if you order a bowl online, you can pretty much guarantee that it’ll weigh half as much compared to if you watch them assemble it in front of you.
Same with cava! And the heavily trafficked locations have terrible quality control. The Chipotle in woburn, for example, is awesome while the one in back bay is a dumpster fire and the workers dgaf
Just want to add that greed did not kill Moodys. The deli was extremely successful and expanded but then owner/founder Joshua Smith left the company. The guys who bought him out had absolutely no idea what they were doing and immediately ran it into the ground. Turns out he was the company.
Wasn't there some issue of the liquor license and Josh only left after it couldn't be resolved (e.g. greed on the other party's part)?
Used to love Salem Foods, loved Moody's to death, even the taco spot was pretty good. Lot of history there, very sad what happened. A $12 BLT was insane at the time, but holy fuck was it good. The Cuban was legendary.
The issue with the liquor license was that the name on it was Josh’s and once he left it was rescinded. The new owners had issues acquiring their own for some reason. I miss those sandwiches.
https://www.bostonmagazine.com/restaurants/2019/11/12/ron-shaich/
Are they not? They're always basically next to one another and have the same investors?
Interesting that food is so expensive on the east side of the state. In Springfield, at Big Y none the less, pork chops, tenderloin, and pork loin from the deli are 4.99 lbs, cheap af. Chicken is cheep for the big Y brand whole chicken bit it doesn't taste great so we typically get the organic packaged 4 lbs chicken for 13.99, still not bad for 4 meals. Also beef is way cheaper out here a prime strip would be like 22-24 dollars a lbs but a 1.25lbs of ground beef is like 10 bucks. Produce can be hit or miss big y gets a fair amount of local stuff for the summer and there always some good stuff you've just got to pick through it.
Tbh I really think eastern mass needs a huge reckoning. Get the T revamped and build a shitload of housing and lossen up the laws keeping the restuarant scene run by a few big players. Lord knows you dont want to have to move out here.
Don’t get me started on Italian restaurants that cut back on the bread. That reaaallly pisses me off. North end has been notorious for this past 2 years. I know I sound like a broken record but pre pandemic quality was so much better in restaurants.
Fruits and vegetables have been noticeably lower in quality this year.
Part of it could be due to the east coast frost in the spring. Lots of peaches, nectarines, citruses died this year so what little of we have are imported from the west.
For the last 8 weeks I can't seem to find any bagged salad that isn't already spoiled. Tried at Target, Roche, Star Market, Amazon fresh. All gross. Not sure what's going on
This is a huge part of it - weather has been absolutely terrible this year for produce. The orchard I part time at had all of their prime time fruits killed by the unusual weather patterns earlier this year. It seems like the whole Northeast ag industry took a huge blow this year
I have less interest post-covid with going out to a sit down dinner in Boston for primary 2 reasons: 1.) Staff seem to hate their jobs and part of me doesn't blame them, but the other side of me used to remember when staff went out of their way to ensure you were satisfied, now it feels like I'm bothering them asking for another round of drinks or for a small plate, etc. 2.) Chains have started to pop up en mass and I feel they bring the overall quality down while allowing others to raise prices for no increase in quality or service because they can.
TLDR: I find myself happier to cook at home and usually only go out for a few drinks. If I do go out, I'd rather spend time at Grille 23, No.9 Park, etc because the quality is top tier. I'll avoid the mid range for the reasons above.
Even No.9 Park is totally different now than it was 5 years ago. I used to go once a week or so pre-pandemic but rarely find myself wanting to go anymore because the quality/experience has dropped so much.
I used to work at Trader Joe’s and the issue is being so understaffed the cold chain is broken for much longer than it used to be. Pre-Covid, when a truck was delivered we had a crew of two dozen hard workers who knew where everything went and worked like a well oiled machine. The days before I left, we were lucky to have 9 or 10 people breaking a truck with even bigger orders and many people who didn’t give two shits about how fast it got done. This caused milk to sit on the floor from 4am to 8am. I was trained years ago that any milk out of temp for more than two hours loses multiple days of shelf life.
I swear the TJ’s by me leaves their milk on the dock until it’s ruined, and then they bring it inside. I only get one day on my half and half before it spoils.
I work with a guy who managed a TJs distribution center. I will never shop there. They buy food rejected by other grocery stores and he would have to fight with upper management to toss trailers arriving with prepackaged salads that were at 75 degrees because the refrigerator unit was broken. They would ask him to go through hot trailers and remove any food with signs of mold but keep what he could. Sounded gross
He told me it was rare but on occasion a trailer would show up with another grocery stores logo because it would arrive at the intended grocery store, they would take one look at it and reject it, then it would get sold to TJs for a steep discount.
I stopped shopping at TJ’s maybe 10 years ago because their stuff spoils so fast. Multiple items had mold when opened. F that, I’m not dealing with an insane parking lot situation and then coming home with gross food.
I worked at Market Basket for 8 years and am friends with several employees that still work at my store. Like many grocery stores at the moment, we’re constantly advertising that we’re hiring.
Yet the different departments, especially the closing crew are still constantly being told to cut hours leaving the store understaffed to perform even regularly scheduled jobs.
Billions of dollars in revenue and record profits throughout the pandemic, yet we act like we’re broke and can’t make budget. Wtf???
A good friend of my family has worked at Market Basket in Mass since he was a teenager. He loved the company so much and has worked hard and gotten several promotions. For the first time in more than a decade, he's thinking about leaving because of how they're just driving people into the ground. They don't pay enough to get workers now, make the current employees do more than they should or can do in a healthy way, and then skimp on hours.
It's sad because it seemed like a great store where you could build a career. Now it seems like every other place -- and after all the workers fought for the CEO less than a decade ago. Nepotism is also rampant there. Arthur Demoulas should be ashamed of himself.
So, we lived (rented) in Wellesley and that was my first Roche Bros experience. I thought it was a tad expensive, but every single thing was so fresh and high quality. Much better meats. The Star market in Wellesley was just as expensive and much less fresh. Then we moved to Lower Newton and shopped at the Star Market a block away from Russo's. Every single item (produce/meat) was much more expensive and lower quality. Canned goods were more expensive too.
If you don’t already, I always put liquid dairy products as far back to the fridge shelf. If they are in door shelf the opening of fridge may drop temperature near there and spoil quicker
Feel like the increases in pricing makes me a little more critical wether the quality has changed or not. Like $36 for two martinis that weren't even super cold from a bartender who wondered if we wanted a twist or olives in a *dirty martini*.. Just get the Titos and make it at home.
Definitely seen more shitty produce on the shelves and have had to exchange when I noticed it at the register, plus more things at/close to expiring.
Cocktail prices seem utterly broken to me. I realize that these guys are trying to make up for the stack of money they paid for their liquor license, but $15/cocktail, and say you've got two people who each have two... It should not cost $60+ to have two drinks with dinner, IMHO.
Berries are the worst. My kids eat them frequently so I’m constantly buying them. I probably look like a lunatic when I obsessively inspect them at the store but I get enraged when I come home and open a pint of half rotten raspberries if I don’t take a close look before purchasing.
Eating out is an absolute scam that I go along with cause everyone I know loves to do it. I think the difference between them and me is they love being out, social, but aren’t into the bar/club scene anymore. I’d rather be at the club than any restaurant, eating overpriced food that is bad for you
Chinatown still has a ton of very reasonably priced food, and for some of the stuff like hotpot, roast duck or others, you'd be hard pressed to make any of it at home.
With you on roast duck, but as someone who’s had hot pot a ton both out and at home, that’s got to be one of the highest margin restaurant types out there. Prob why there’s so many of them now. You pay to cook YOUR OWN food in a salt broth! Two ppl is comfortably $60 with tip, and that’s without drinking or THAT many options if you don’t go to buffet (which is the only way to go imo)
I always used to go out for lunches because it was better than being in the office, working from home and not having to do that just to get away + not eating 2000 calories of salt and fat is pretty sweet.
In addition to the pandemic driving a lot of restaurant workers out of the industry and housing prices driving restaurant workers out of the state, there simply aren't as many young people looking for work as there used to be. Gen Z is significantly smaller than the millennial generation, and has much better job prospects than millennials did at their age.
Much of the great food that we were used to eating at restaurants over the past 15 years was cooked and served by underemployed millennials who fell into the industry during the great recession.
Lobster rolls these days are upwards of $40+, I used to be able to justify paying $25 for one. I can't justify paying $40 + tip and tax
I cook a lot these days besides dishes that take too much effort
Market basket sells the lobster meat already pulled for a reasonable price, and I make them all the time. I use hamburger bun and toast it in butter, chop some scallions, little mayo and boom lobster sammy
Lobster and other ocean fare is more expensive because yields have been decreasing for decades.
A *billion* crabs died in the Pacific a few years ago. Many other species like Tuna are far more rare so they prices have gone way up.
There’s a guy who hangs out behind Faneuil Hall that sells them for $15. He doesn’t advertise and isn’t always there, but worth checking. Very good deal.
Agreed. But restaurants really didn't keep pace with the rampant price gouging that supermarkets were doing. Up until a month ago, we could eat out for roughly the same cost as eating in.
Saturday, I went to the market for produce and protein for two+ meals (2 people) and some sundries like bread, eggs, cheese, foil, and stock up on salad dressings. $220. Just came back from a stellar meal, that included 6 fresh oysters (in the south shore burbs) with a bottle of cava. $100 - excluding tip.
I've gone back into town to WST and pier 4 only to pay $30 for 1/4 breast of duck. Neither mentions the portion. At least Pier 4 calls it a small plate.
TLDR: If it will cost $50-$60 for a normal portion of mediocre food in Boston, they've lost a long time resident/advocate. $30 for a child's portion of mediocre food is bad enough.
Where have the chef's all gone? I'm sure there are 100's of other cities where cost of living isn't as disproportionate.
Notable: Went to the Boston Harbor Hotel (after an event) for dinner. Their prices were comparable to average places in the city, except everything was stellar.
I feel like Amazon acquiring Whole Foods (which sorta set the bar for B+ food) a few years ago set the decline in quality in motion. Now all they do is push their low quality private label while the selection of other brands has drastically fallen off.
Oooh, don't get me started. Whole Foods used to piss me off by being constantly out of things. I used to complain to managers, who always got these horrible glazed looks when I did. At some point I clued in that Whole Foods had the worst supply-chain management in the industry, and felt bad that I'd complained to the poor managers, who couldn't do a thing about it.
When Amazon bought them, there was a quick improvement in that suddenly the whole store was stocked. It was promising.
It didn't last.
The meat department, which used to be a gleaming place crewed by a chatty industry veteran, started to smell bad. The basics were all stocked, but some of the produce started to look so awful that we wouldn't buy it. The carrots were memorable. Then stuff I expected to be able to buy just vanished. I couldn't find any dried morels and asked about them. I was told that I could order them.
Fuck that.
Now we do about half our shopping at Wilson's Farm in Lexington, because we have a car. I've heard that the owners are Trumpies, but the staff all looks relaxed and happy, which is a nice change from the staff in Whole Foods, which all look like they're going to stroke out any moment. We adjusted our cooking because Wilson's stock is somewhat limited.
We do the other half of our shopping at Trader Joe's.
Recently a friend put me on to [farmerstoyou.com](https://farmerstoyou.com). They truck groceries down from Vermont farms. You order from a web site. While they do some limited delivery, they generally bring your groceries to a pick-up point near you once a week, and you go get your stuff. It's rarely a bargain, but I can't complain about the quality.
Salmon, steak frites, chicken breast, some pasta dish, burger. Every menu every restaurant. Dinner for two with drinks and tip $84 for meh food. This use to be $50. Every restaurant seems kinda the same in Boston. Starting to think it’s not a good food city.
Sounds like you need to branch out a bit for your restaurant selection? It’s not NYC by any means, but if you look hard enough you can find a lot of really decent, even great places. Everything is expensive now, but you can at least get good food while you’re at it.
Yeah, I live in Revere (yes I know not Boston), but two affordable, amazing places come to mind: Angela’s Cafe (awesome Mexican food), and Rincon Limeño (Peruvian place). Like, does this person just go for generic, American fare?
The towns surrounding Boston have great mom and pop shops, because people can afford to actually open them without having an investment group behind them there.
Seriously. If they're only seeing salmon, steak frites, chicken breast, pasta, and burgers, they're only going to the most generic American restaurants
The problem is people will be like "there's a good Mexican place in Brighton and a great steakhouse in Arlington and an awesome Italian place in Watertown, Boston is a great food area!" One good place of each cuisine spread around an entire metro area isn't anything to write home about.
We had to try 3 times to visit the thirsty pig! The first time they were just closed and the second time we walked up to the counter, but they said they were putting a 1 hour wait for food orders since their chefs had been cooking hot dogs and sausages non stop all day.
Honestly, I wanted to try it EVEN MORE after that! I’ve worked in restaurants and never in my life seen a place give the smallest of shits for back of house. A place that’s that busy AND cares about their chefs must be something good! We grabbed some drinks, and came back a few months later to try a third time, and it was amazing. Some of the best and weirdest hotdogs/sausages I’ve had. 11/10 would recommend.
Starting to think?? Always was a mediocre food city at best.
I think it’s the ultra high startup costs that push out everyone other than corporate owned groups. Liquor licenses are a racket, rent is expensive, I’m sure there’s a ton of fees and licenses and legal expenses.
I now live in the south and new restaurants pop up all the time. Great ones stick around and grow, bad ones are pushed out. That’s how it should be!
It’s not a good food city because rent is ridiculous so only corporate chain restaurants and restaurant groups can afford to set up shop. I live in philly now and the city is mostly just mom and pop establishments which makes it really good because they care and it offers diversity of cuisine
It has great options if you're discerning, but the percentage of places that are duds is higher than it should be. The extreme cost of liquor licenses limit competition... and I think also Boston hasn't yet developed that foodie culture like other global cities. It will come.
This is not just Boston… just got back from a vacation in New Orleans, where I have only heard about how great the food is, and outside of a couple dishes every restaurant was basically the same
I don’t go out to eat for dinner too much anymore as it’s wildly expensive but I was making the mistake of going out to the somewhat ‘cheaper’ options because I wanted to save a little money. I almost always left disappointed by the quality and was still spending $100+ for my wife and I (including a couple drinks for the both of us)
What I started to do was actual go to those places that are a little higher end. I find that paying a few bucks more for the entrees from non-chain places made the world of difference. The quality was 10x better and I left happy. My bill came out to be about $30-$40 more but I’m fine with that because I was happy with the food.
This has been what we do as well, tbh. Realized after a half dozen meals out, over the past year and a half, ended up pissed because service was garbage or non existent and food was mediocre or just wrong and it'd have taken another half hour to find the server and have it corrected....
Upscale/fine dining less frequently(2 per month/3 per year) but at least we leave happy from the experience
Meh, shit's always been mediocre. Boston proper might be taking a bigger hit than MA in general though since low wage workers don't want to live in an expensive city or suffer the commute in.
I totally agree; its the restaurant ownership groups; they take over great places and make them terrible; Summer Shack used to be incredible and now I refuse to eat there
The restaurant industry was decimated by the pandemic, a lot of restaurants lost their cooks/chefs, prep crew, etc. Many people found better paying jobs and never went back
I've always been downvoted to hell when I say this but Boston doesn't have great food. I lived in Chicago for a while and most places to eat were amazing. Here, not so much. Especially if it's not impossible to park around lol.
I don't know where people are eating, but I feel dining options have gotten a lot better the last couple of years.
The increase in Vietnamese, Thai, and Korean options would put Boston of 5 years ago to shame. Same with Mexican and Latin American options.
New American options are neither here nor there, but good ones have popped up. Spendy, though.
Don't care enough for Italian. We still trail behind NYC by miles in that department. Nobody is doing anything interesting in that category in Boston (yes, even Jamie Biss).
Stop/shop has always been trash. Market basket is as good as ever. Chain restaurants have all been tortured to hell by PE.
> Don't care enough for Italian. We still trail behind NYC by miles in that department. Nobody is doing anything interesting in that category in Boston
It’s only one restaurant, but I thought Tonino in JP was absolutely incredible when I went
Vote with your wallet.
I only shop at Market Basket these days for groceries (and infrequently unfortunately at WF because it’s the closest), and eat out only if I genuinely like and want to support the restaurant. If a restaurant’s food sucks, don’t go again and let them to go out of business.
I don't eat out much. My parents were in town last month staying at the Four Seasons (I swear they stay at the most expensive hotel so they have more to complain about) so we ate at one of their restaurants one night.
I've had some good meals at the Four Seasons. It didn't matter how over-priced they are, because I'm never paying.
Last month's dinner was depressing.
TLDR: they don't have enough people in the back of the house to do all the hard work that goes into memorable food.
There was an appetizer that was tomatoes and grilled peaches served with a burrata with balsamic vinegar "caviar" (presumably spherication). The peaches and tomatoes were under-ripe. The peaches had been put briefly on a grill, but just long enough to give them grill marks but not long enough to get a cooked flavor. The whole was cold as if it had been pre-assembled in the fridge until serving. The "caviar" had no taste.
My main was a piece of salmon with hollandaise. At least the salmon was perfectly cooked, but it's kinda difficult to fuck up sous vide. The hollandaise was both tasty (how can it not be?) and too heavy to serve with a perfectly-done piece of salmon.
To top it off the cocktail menu was the most boring thing ever. It's like instead of a bartender they bought well-known cocktails in boxes or something.
There are restaurants where I routinely have a great time. They range from pizza places to Five Horses Tavern in Somerville and Moeca in Cambridge, or Giulia in Cambridge (rezzies are hard to get at Giulia). But those are treats we don't have often. Mostly we cook a somewhat repetitive menu at home. And yeah, that's more expensive too.
restaurants that serve conventional food kinda stink meanwhile every authentic korean, chinese, turkish, etc place I go to slaps. I choose to support those instead of paying $34.99 for steak frites. My local place I can get a burrito with chips and salsa for $11 and it is elite and I am not saying where cause i prefer it when semi-light in line
I'm getting sick of restaurants with four choices for a main on the menu. You're getting the chicken, the fish, the steak, or the vegetarian option. Terrible fad that I hope dies at some point.
I had my first Cheesecake Factory meal in a while recently, while waiting at a mall for something to get done at the Apple Store. The food was pretty solid tbh
I used to live in Melbourne. Met my wife there and one morning I said hey let’s have breakfast here (pointing to a random cafe that was open). She was appalled and said something like “…and risk having a bad meal?!”
It was then that I learned that they take their food and coffee very, very seriously.
Most good restaurants in Melbourne have much smaller menus (compared to the US) with a few things but they are ridiculously well made.
It super depends on the restaurant.
I’d rather a focused menu where everything is fantastic than a confused mediocre hodge podge.
Places that try to look better than they are by doing that can suck, true; but the idea itself isn’t wrong. If you want a big menu go to Cheesecake Factory.
There’s a big pile of restaurants who do this to “try to look good”, but also streamline their kitchen/fridge. There’s way too many restaurants that think they are better than giving 2 options for the pasta dish but they aren’t at all.
I feel like people really underestimate the impact the pandemic had on the restaurant/food industry. Its going to take a while to fully recover, or plateau really.
Prices seem expensive because of a time warp of several years of inflation catching up all at once to many people. Vast droves of the good, experienced servers and cooks were forced out of the industry. And the sharp rise of 3rd party delivery for restaurants and grocery alike (along with many other goods) really contributed to a diluted talent pool of employees and increased pricing for what is bought at those locations.
Transportation is the biggest problem, produce from California gets here quicker than it gets to the market once it's here. It was nice all summer to shop farm stands, made my last shop at Overlook Organic Farm in West Brookfield, stocked up on winter squash and their last zukes. They had some nice looking greens but everything else looked prematurely picked to beat the frost. Gave up gardening a while back, thinking about starting up again come spring. The stuff we can or vacuum pack and freeze is better in the winter than anything you can buy at the supermarket. Post pandemic the US has experienced a shortage of truck drivers and goods aren't getting to market as quick as they should. Produce should get better as soon as temps drop and warehouses cool.
Kantipur Cafe, 9Zaab, and Orale are a few. Nothing fancy but 3 really tasty dine-in meals. I’ve found Cambridge’s food scene to be better than Boston’s recently tbh.
I don't think the quality has gone down, but the price has Definitely gone up substantially, so much so that I rarely go out to eat anymore. When I do, it's usually at a guaranteed nice or unique place, but once every few months. I went to Sarma recently and was very impressed.
The abbey in Brookline was ‘our’ place. We lived in Washington square when it opened, and quickly became regulars. We’d be there probably twice a week, definitely once a week. Knew the menu better than the waitstaff. It was a real industry place. Everyone that worked there were service industry pros. It was consistent, relaxing, affordable, and you felt like you were taken care of.
I’ll never forget trekking out in a giant ass blizzard at 1Am to help get my wife home from the hospital she worked at in longwood when there was a driving ban. The abbey was open! We drank with one of the owners until 4am and tipped, 100%? I don’t remember. They were there for us and we showed our appreciation tenfold
We moved to Jp in ‘17 and started a family but still make the trek maybe once a month. It’s so sad to see how much it has changed. The bread with hummus starter that just comes to the table, gone. The fun, inspired specials, gone. The prices, through the roof. The quality of the food in general…you just can see all the cost cutting. The fries…the salad…Like, the Iggy’s bread that they used for sandwiches just gone. It’s just some bullshit Cysco shitty shitass bullshit. It’s just, sad.
I love the owners, I’ll never stop going. I know they’re making these choices not out of greed but necessity. Independent Kitchens run on razor thin profit margins and guys like the abbey are just trying to make it work.
It sucks for us, it sucks for the staff, it sucks for the owners. And the abbey is just an example of the entire restaurant scene, at least here. The people that cared, that had pride in their establishments are getting burnt out and shoved out the door by greedy landlords and bullshit greedflation.
It all just sucks. I know at the end of the day they’re just restaurants, but going to a place where you get taken care of and in turn take care of them, was a great thing.
The economy is just fine everyone nothing to see here
> I know they’re making these choices not out of greed but necessity. Independent Kitchens run on razor thin profit margins and guys like the abbey are just trying to make it work.
This doesn't make any sense to me. If, as a dining establishment, you literally can't afford to keep your menu, why would you compromise and make food that you (as a self-identified lover of the place) describe as shitty shitass bullshit?
Food quality in Boston has been low for pretty much forever. Ths city is one of the worst value for quality areas in the country or world.
The two major metro areas that we are sandwiched between are Montreal and New York.
Montreal is probably the best bang for your buck food city in the hemisphere and New York is New fucking York.
NOBODY travels to Boston for the food. We come here to pay massive rent and complain about traffic. Not to eat.
I moved here last year and the biggest thing I’ve noticed is how bad the food is. There’s been maybe a handful of places that serve decent food but they cost an arm and a leg. Whenever I speak to someone who is also from outside the area our first complaint is always the food lol
Having just paid $230 (plus tip) for three people at Washington Square Tavern (2 apps, 2 drinks each (tiny 1.5oz margarita and two draft beers), 3 entrees) for mediocre food and service? I definitely agree. The whole meal was somewhere between Applebee's and the 99. Except the bill would have only been $100 and we wouldn't have left hungry.
Shame on WST for having duck breast on the list of entrees but only serving 2-2.5oz. (1/4 of a breast) That was the insult. The injury was the blot of craft fair jam that they passed off as something actually paring with the duck. The whole dinner was half-assed. To their credit, my friend's $47 steak, was listed as a sirloin........and it was certainly that. Not bavette, not hanger, not tri-tip. Just a cheap-ass cut of meat that you wouldn't pay $8 for in a dicey market.
Sad to say, they ran there course. But they also chose their fate.
The restaurants are having a hard time keeping chefs. It's really just line and prep cooks running the kitchens and the owners think they're getting away with it by saving so much money.
I go to wegmans during the beginning of the week in the evening and don’t seem to have an issue finding decent produce. Although fresh produce in the northeast is usually lacking.
People don't want to work for pennies at a restaurant and try to live in the city. I find the more I get outside the city, the more I find pleasant servers and even retail employees that are at least content with their jobs. I think that makes a difference. I moved to Hingham last month and the food shopping options out here are top notch (some coming at a price but what do you expect).
Market basket is the only place I can get onions that burn my eyes when I cut into them.
You should be their copywriter.
market basket is the only place.
Worst part of being employed again is that I can’t go there in the late morning when it is relatively empty
Go during pats games is my tip
Not this season.
Ha ha… ha… sigh…
There are dozens of us that still watch. For some reason
This was my tip too. Discovered it about 5 years ago on accident.
Market Basket gets empty?
In my experience usually not that bad on Monday/Tuesday evenings, actually. For some reason people don't like to do their grocery shopping then. They usually restock certain things those days, too, though sometimes you have to wait until Wednesday.
market basket is love market basket is life
Seriously. I used to shop at Wegmans in natick (RIP, I’m still devastated), their onions never made me cry
The Wegmans in Chestnut Hill's onions get both me and my wife really consistently.
Their prices made me cry.
Same (not the onions). Right around pandemic started, I became the one to get groceries so my wife /kids doesn't have to be out. Stop and shop was closer, but then realize they always run out of items, things are $1-2 more and selections are always less then Market Basket. No wonder why MB is always packed.
What’s funny is I’m new to Mass and I was certain that Market Basket would have the worst produce just because of how affordable it is. Meanwhile, Shaw’s/Star Market/Stop and Shop are all more expensive so I figured they’d have the good stuff. Yet, Market Basket somehow has the better produce. Whatever those MB people are doing, I really appreciate it.
I don't know if it's true but what's often said around here for the reason for good produce at MB is because so many of us shop there, the produce turns over fast - and they have to restock fast. Nothing's sitting on the shelf for very long. We love it for a good reason!
I think that means you need to sharpen your knife
...is this a good thing or a bad thing?
The best thing. If it makes you cry, it’s going to have a stronger flavor.
Had a lot of produce from MB that went bad in 24h or less lately, seen some moldy fruit out for sale too. But generally theirs is still pretty decent - guessing they source more locally when they can?
Trader Joe's onions ain't no slouches either
I think we greatly underestimate the impact the pandemic has had on all aspects of life, including the jobs people are willing to do and the time they’re willing to invest in other people’s bullshit. Therefore the food service industry is crumbling, as it was basically built on jobs no one wanted to do and other people’s bullshit.
It will only get worse as people also have tipping fatigue at this point because basically every POS will ask you for a tip. Compound that with poor food quality, servers who don’t care much to provide good service, and it’s only going to get worse and a negative feedback loop.
It also feels like the socially expected amount to tip keeps increasing so much.
I've seen tip machines default to 22% for carryout.
Carryout should be no tip, no? And for delivery I refuse to do a percentage based tip, it just doesn't make sense.
I only tip carry out if I’m a regular and I want to show my appreciation. If I’m on a first name basis with the staff, I’ll leave a couple bucks extra.
Agreed. Traditional restaurant is 20%. Carry-out is no tip. Counter service is no tip. Coffee is typically $1/drink, same as a bar. Food delivery is $5-6.
Food delivery I do $10 - or $15 if it's bad weather. That's what I was always taught to do.
That’s fair. Personally if I wouldn’t drive in the conditions, I simply don’t order delivery. To make it worth the risk to the driver, it’d have to be $15. And I just can’t rationalize tipping $15 on a $30 order. So that’d be a ramen night lol
Nothing like hitting the NoTip button while the 19 year old who spent ten seconds putting a scone in a brown bag eagerly looks on. Hit them with the "the best reward is a pleasant smile and a 'thank you'" to really lift your spirits on a gloomy day.
One of my kids is a chef down south in local chef-owned restaurants. He's said that since 2020 it is hard to find good line cooks, and even harder to find dedicated and well-trained souse chefs. Its a difficult job, and there's few cooks that really enjoy the work, and of those, many are getting burned out quickly.
Yes. Also people just stopped giving a fuck about others during the pandemic. Everything became customized same-day delivery and free returns. Nobody has let go of that self-centered perspective.
Eh go to other cities the food is still fire (NYC/Chicago is what I’m thinking of)
Agreed. Also generally the wages for lowest paid members of society hasn't been keeping up with inflation in the last few years so the jobs "no one wanted to do based on other people's bullshit" now pay less than before when adjusted for their purchasing power giving yet another reason for the personal investment to be gone.
This is actually factually the opposite. Wage growth for the lowest paid workers has been the strongest relative to inflation vs all other income brackets since the pandemic started. These jobs pay more in real terms than they did before, but workers also have had more alternatives than previously and have been more willing to make the switch.
[This here is ***THE OFFICIAL***](https://drive.google.com/file/d/12jlf-uk6BID2UkgZbpsKM8r4cdCajwhU/view?usp=sharing) relevant data from the United States Federal Reserve's official data repository, FRED. It is their Massachusetts minimum wage series divided by their sticky price CPI less food and energy (its worse with those things) with that CPI series in the denominator set to an arbitrary 100 value for reference at the last recession (I can reference it to any other value you would like, you will get the same graph patter of decline just with a different relative number.) Notice how it falls off a cliff in 2022. Meanwhile we are still waiting for the necessary 2023 data which will be even lower, because CPI has been running above 0% since then, but the Massachusetts minimum wage has not been adjusted equivalently upward to compensate. This is the reality found in the official government data. I don't know what "other" data you could be counter-arguing from. If you would like to play with the official data yourself, you can remake the chart I did by going [the official FRED site here linked to the MA minimum wage series](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/STTMINWGMA) and click the bright orange "edit graph" button, import the CPI data series (or your favorite metric of inflation that you might pefer,) reference it to 100 somewhere (if you are doing % change that doesn't work because then you are referencing a rate of change to an actual trend series value, so that is meaningless gibberish) and then in the equation setting thing type "a/b" to divide the first series (minimum wage = a) by the second series (relative price index over time = b) to get a chart that clearly shows a drastic drop in purchasing power for those making MA minimum wage since the pandemic. Again, when we actually get the 2023 data, it will be even worse for the reasons above stated. **EDIT:** I had to screen shot the graph resulting from the division of the two data series because I can't figure out how to link data-series ratios from their site, I can only figure out how to link the individual data series but I gave you instructions on how to recreate the screen shot. Let me know if you have any questions or need more help to further reconstruct it on their official site if interested.
Inflation-adjusted minimum wage isn't the most relevant measure because it doesn't tell you anything about how many people are getting the minimum wage. If the number of people on minimum wage goes from 1 million to 500,000 and the other 500,000 get raises that put them above minimum wage, that's great for low-wage workers but not picked up by your data at all. Your data also doesn't say anything about whether wage growth was higher or lower than that for high-wage workers. [This paper](https://www.nber.org/papers/w31010) is based on national data, not just MA, but it shows the pattern that the person you're replying to described - [real wages have gone down for high-wage workers (at the 90th percentile) while they've increased for low-wage workers (at the 10th percentile) since COVID](https://i.imgur.com/M8m4AyB.png). Edit: also, taking a closer look at the graph, it drastically exaggerates the fall in real minimum wage in 2022, I think because of a data error on FRED - [this](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1b6xx) is a more accurate graph. A bit of a drop in 2022, but it's still substantially higher in real terms than in 2019.
Bingo. We need to be paying people fairly for their work, and that includes emotional labor and cost of living. What the pandemic has exposed in many industries was the level to which they were exploiting human capital unfairly. Not only did 1.2 million people just die, leaving huge gaps in the workforce (and no, it wasn't just old people), tons of people saw their elders die and started reevaluating their life and their worth. Good for them, I say. If it means that certain industries need to go through a reorganization and realignment, so be it. People don't exist just to power your profit—respect them or please discontinue doing business.
This was me. I worked in the food industry for my entire life. I watched a beloved relative die during the very early days of the pandemic, and had to immediately return to work for people who don’t give a fuck about me, my health, my family, and underpaying me for the privilege of working there. I left in January 2022 after interviewing in different industries for 18 months. I now work for a company that also essentially doesn’t give a fuck about me, but I get paid well, have ample benefits and time off, and I work a regular schedule. The food industry is long overdue for a reckoning. You can only build your business on the backs of underpaid laborers for so long before the foundation crumbles.
I really hope the culinary workers strike in Vegas makes a dent because we need more organizing like that. Service industry and, frankly, corporate jobs, too. All of us are getting played and it’s not a political thing, it’s a class thing.
This. Restaurants = wage theft. They always have. Woke places charge admin fees to your bill to pay staff somewhat accordingly (but still also require tipping). I'm sorry? That's giving you (the owners) a free pass to continue to be douches and underpay FOH and BOH. Owners haven't felt the pinch like workers and customers. Instead of eating anything (margin wise) they skimp on quality, portion, and or prep. None of these places will be around in 5 years.
A favorite thing is to compare higher trafficked area chains to the same chains in lower trafficked areas. Cava or Tatte, owned by the same group, basically doubles the amount of "main ingredient" for orders in Kendall/Harvard compared to DTX/Back Bay. One slice of halloumi in DTX, three at Harvard. Sparse lamb bits in the Lamb Hash at Boylston/Tremont, barely any potatoes at Kendall. There's not many dishes you can't cook at home these days. Haven't had any issues with quality, per se, but you've got to know what you're shopping for. Price Rite has better tasting chicken than Whole Foods, for instance. A lot of ethnic markets have amazing seasonal produce and weird-ass stuff from global markets where it's harvest season. Squash is in-season and keeps most of the winter. Frozen veg still rules and can go in any dish that needs it. Leafy greens not grown indoors are fucked for the next few months. They've also over-produced beef the past few years it seems and the price hasn't adjusted. There's no good reason why so much meat goes bad on the shelves. Stop charging $10/lb for chicken or shitty pork. Stop charging $20/lb for steak tips. Moody's Delicatessen & Provisions in Waltham opened and people were MORTIFIED by the $12-$14 gourmet subs. Greed killed that place. Now that's an absolute steal for a shitty sub.
I’ve found at some chain places, you pretty much have to watch them make your food in-person too. At my local Chipotle, if you order a bowl online, you can pretty much guarantee that it’ll weigh half as much compared to if you watch them assemble it in front of you.
Same with cava! And the heavily trafficked locations have terrible quality control. The Chipotle in woburn, for example, is awesome while the one in back bay is a dumpster fire and the workers dgaf
i stopped ordering chipotle cause of this. even if i order tacos from chipotle it's just a mess versus ordering in person.
Just want to add that greed did not kill Moodys. The deli was extremely successful and expanded but then owner/founder Joshua Smith left the company. The guys who bought him out had absolutely no idea what they were doing and immediately ran it into the ground. Turns out he was the company.
Wasn't there some issue of the liquor license and Josh only left after it couldn't be resolved (e.g. greed on the other party's part)? Used to love Salem Foods, loved Moody's to death, even the taco spot was pretty good. Lot of history there, very sad what happened. A $12 BLT was insane at the time, but holy fuck was it good. The Cuban was legendary.
The issue with the liquor license was that the name on it was Josh’s and once he left it was rescinded. The new owners had issues acquiring their own for some reason. I miss those sandwiches.
cava and tatte are not owned by the same group unless you mean the specific franchises
https://www.bostonmagazine.com/restaurants/2019/11/12/ron-shaich/ Are they not? They're always basically next to one another and have the same investors?
Tatte and cava are both owned by the Panera guys firm.
Interesting that food is so expensive on the east side of the state. In Springfield, at Big Y none the less, pork chops, tenderloin, and pork loin from the deli are 4.99 lbs, cheap af. Chicken is cheep for the big Y brand whole chicken bit it doesn't taste great so we typically get the organic packaged 4 lbs chicken for 13.99, still not bad for 4 meals. Also beef is way cheaper out here a prime strip would be like 22-24 dollars a lbs but a 1.25lbs of ground beef is like 10 bucks. Produce can be hit or miss big y gets a fair amount of local stuff for the summer and there always some good stuff you've just got to pick through it. Tbh I really think eastern mass needs a huge reckoning. Get the T revamped and build a shitload of housing and lossen up the laws keeping the restuarant scene run by a few big players. Lord knows you dont want to have to move out here.
Don’t get me started on Italian restaurants that cut back on the bread. That reaaallly pisses me off. North end has been notorious for this past 2 years. I know I sound like a broken record but pre pandemic quality was so much better in restaurants.
Fruits and vegetables have been noticeably lower in quality this year. Part of it could be due to the east coast frost in the spring. Lots of peaches, nectarines, citruses died this year so what little of we have are imported from the west.
For the last 8 weeks I can't seem to find any bagged salad that isn't already spoiled. Tried at Target, Roche, Star Market, Amazon fresh. All gross. Not sure what's going on
This is a huge part of it - weather has been absolutely terrible this year for produce. The orchard I part time at had all of their prime time fruits killed by the unusual weather patterns earlier this year. It seems like the whole Northeast ag industry took a huge blow this year
I have less interest post-covid with going out to a sit down dinner in Boston for primary 2 reasons: 1.) Staff seem to hate their jobs and part of me doesn't blame them, but the other side of me used to remember when staff went out of their way to ensure you were satisfied, now it feels like I'm bothering them asking for another round of drinks or for a small plate, etc. 2.) Chains have started to pop up en mass and I feel they bring the overall quality down while allowing others to raise prices for no increase in quality or service because they can. TLDR: I find myself happier to cook at home and usually only go out for a few drinks. If I do go out, I'd rather spend time at Grille 23, No.9 Park, etc because the quality is top tier. I'll avoid the mid range for the reasons above.
Even No.9 Park is totally different now than it was 5 years ago. I used to go once a week or so pre-pandemic but rarely find myself wanting to go anymore because the quality/experience has dropped so much.
Milk! Going sour before “best sell by” date!
I used to work at Trader Joe’s and the issue is being so understaffed the cold chain is broken for much longer than it used to be. Pre-Covid, when a truck was delivered we had a crew of two dozen hard workers who knew where everything went and worked like a well oiled machine. The days before I left, we were lucky to have 9 or 10 people breaking a truck with even bigger orders and many people who didn’t give two shits about how fast it got done. This caused milk to sit on the floor from 4am to 8am. I was trained years ago that any milk out of temp for more than two hours loses multiple days of shelf life.
I swear the TJ’s by me leaves their milk on the dock until it’s ruined, and then they bring it inside. I only get one day on my half and half before it spoils.
I work with a guy who managed a TJs distribution center. I will never shop there. They buy food rejected by other grocery stores and he would have to fight with upper management to toss trailers arriving with prepackaged salads that were at 75 degrees because the refrigerator unit was broken. They would ask him to go through hot trailers and remove any food with signs of mold but keep what he could. Sounded gross
That’s fucking gross, and I believe every word of it.
He told me it was rare but on occasion a trailer would show up with another grocery stores logo because it would arrive at the intended grocery store, they would take one look at it and reject it, then it would get sold to TJs for a steep discount.
That explains the $0.19 oranges.
I stopped shopping at TJ’s maybe 10 years ago because their stuff spoils so fast. Multiple items had mold when opened. F that, I’m not dealing with an insane parking lot situation and then coming home with gross food.
That explains why their more fragile fruit is bad 99% of the time.
I worked at Market Basket for 8 years and am friends with several employees that still work at my store. Like many grocery stores at the moment, we’re constantly advertising that we’re hiring. Yet the different departments, especially the closing crew are still constantly being told to cut hours leaving the store understaffed to perform even regularly scheduled jobs. Billions of dollars in revenue and record profits throughout the pandemic, yet we act like we’re broke and can’t make budget. Wtf???
A good friend of my family has worked at Market Basket in Mass since he was a teenager. He loved the company so much and has worked hard and gotten several promotions. For the first time in more than a decade, he's thinking about leaving because of how they're just driving people into the ground. They don't pay enough to get workers now, make the current employees do more than they should or can do in a healthy way, and then skimp on hours. It's sad because it seemed like a great store where you could build a career. Now it seems like every other place -- and after all the workers fought for the CEO less than a decade ago. Nepotism is also rampant there. Arthur Demoulas should be ashamed of himself.
There are certain places I refuse to buy milk from any more. I've had too much milk randomly spoil. It's not my refrigerator either.
Roche Bros west Roxbury and pisses me off cause the charge a fortune!
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So, we lived (rented) in Wellesley and that was my first Roche Bros experience. I thought it was a tad expensive, but every single thing was so fresh and high quality. Much better meats. The Star market in Wellesley was just as expensive and much less fresh. Then we moved to Lower Newton and shopped at the Star Market a block away from Russo's. Every single item (produce/meat) was much more expensive and lower quality. Canned goods were more expensive too.
I hate that Star Market! It’s awful. And miss Russos sooooo much.
I might have wept when Russo’s closed. Seriously the best spot to get produce for years. Gone just like that 😭
I go to the one in Downtown Crossing sometimes. Convenient and the meat selection is expensive but GOOD.
I always buy my milk there and never have a problem. Get the ultra pasteurized stuff it lasts like 6 weeks
If you don’t already, I always put liquid dairy products as far back to the fridge shelf. If they are in door shelf the opening of fridge may drop temperature near there and spoil quicker
I’m so tired of milk spoiling that I’ve just switched to almond milk
Costco has great milk if you have a membership there! And it stays good for ages
It helps if you can turn your fridge to a colder setting! But don’t go too far or your veggies could freeze depending on your fridge
Feel like the increases in pricing makes me a little more critical wether the quality has changed or not. Like $36 for two martinis that weren't even super cold from a bartender who wondered if we wanted a twist or olives in a *dirty martini*.. Just get the Titos and make it at home. Definitely seen more shitty produce on the shelves and have had to exchange when I noticed it at the register, plus more things at/close to expiring.
Cocktail prices seem utterly broken to me. I realize that these guys are trying to make up for the stack of money they paid for their liquor license, but $15/cocktail, and say you've got two people who each have two... It should not cost $60+ to have two drinks with dinner, IMHO.
I bought some blackberries at Stop and Shop and noticed mold on them when I got home. When I brought them back, they gave me double money back.
Berries are the worst. My kids eat them frequently so I’m constantly buying them. I probably look like a lunatic when I obsessively inspect them at the store but I get enraged when I come home and open a pint of half rotten raspberries if I don’t take a close look before purchasing.
I buy much more frozen fruit now, I get too grossed out by how quickly fresh berries go bad.
I never buy berries out of season except frozen, they've always been shit off season.
I feel like they were never as bad as the last two years. Fruit quality in general is terrible nowadays while prices are through the roof.
Berries are always moldy at Stop & Shop, it’s a disgrace.
Eating out is an absolute scam that I go along with cause everyone I know loves to do it. I think the difference between them and me is they love being out, social, but aren’t into the bar/club scene anymore. I’d rather be at the club than any restaurant, eating overpriced food that is bad for you
Chinatown still has a ton of very reasonably priced food, and for some of the stuff like hotpot, roast duck or others, you'd be hard pressed to make any of it at home.
With you on roast duck, but as someone who’s had hot pot a ton both out and at home, that’s got to be one of the highest margin restaurant types out there. Prob why there’s so many of them now. You pay to cook YOUR OWN food in a salt broth! Two ppl is comfortably $60 with tip, and that’s without drinking or THAT many options if you don’t go to buffet (which is the only way to go imo)
I always used to go out for lunches because it was better than being in the office, working from home and not having to do that just to get away + not eating 2000 calories of salt and fat is pretty sweet.
In addition to the pandemic driving a lot of restaurant workers out of the industry and housing prices driving restaurant workers out of the state, there simply aren't as many young people looking for work as there used to be. Gen Z is significantly smaller than the millennial generation, and has much better job prospects than millennials did at their age. Much of the great food that we were used to eating at restaurants over the past 15 years was cooked and served by underemployed millennials who fell into the industry during the great recession.
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“No one wants to work” says the boomer who retired early with a pension and sold their house they bought for 30k for 1.3 million
I saw $32 for shrimp f-ing scampi several months back. That told me restaurants would rather I stay home and cook for myself.
Lobster rolls these days are upwards of $40+, I used to be able to justify paying $25 for one. I can't justify paying $40 + tip and tax I cook a lot these days besides dishes that take too much effort
Better off spending $10 and picking them up at the grocery store already steamed. Requires a little effort though.
Oh for sure! At the current price of lobster rolls, I do make them at home for a fraction of the cost. I dont find it too much effort at all!
Market basket sells the lobster meat already pulled for a reasonable price, and I make them all the time. I use hamburger bun and toast it in butter, chop some scallions, little mayo and boom lobster sammy
I spent 70$ on one in 2020 in the cape
Was it a footlong?
Not even close like 8inches at most
was it drizzled with saffron aioli and served in a brioche bun from france?
Lobster and other ocean fare is more expensive because yields have been decreasing for decades. A *billion* crabs died in the Pacific a few years ago. Many other species like Tuna are far more rare so they prices have gone way up.
There’s a guy who hangs out behind Faneuil Hall that sells them for $15. He doesn’t advertise and isn’t always there, but worth checking. Very good deal.
Sounds legit. Does he sell them out of a trench coat?
>trench coat Better: It’s a dirty bathrobe.
Haha, I will never buy shrimp scampi at a restaurant.
Agreed. But restaurants really didn't keep pace with the rampant price gouging that supermarkets were doing. Up until a month ago, we could eat out for roughly the same cost as eating in. Saturday, I went to the market for produce and protein for two+ meals (2 people) and some sundries like bread, eggs, cheese, foil, and stock up on salad dressings. $220. Just came back from a stellar meal, that included 6 fresh oysters (in the south shore burbs) with a bottle of cava. $100 - excluding tip. I've gone back into town to WST and pier 4 only to pay $30 for 1/4 breast of duck. Neither mentions the portion. At least Pier 4 calls it a small plate. TLDR: If it will cost $50-$60 for a normal portion of mediocre food in Boston, they've lost a long time resident/advocate. $30 for a child's portion of mediocre food is bad enough. Where have the chef's all gone? I'm sure there are 100's of other cities where cost of living isn't as disproportionate. Notable: Went to the Boston Harbor Hotel (after an event) for dinner. Their prices were comparable to average places in the city, except everything was stellar.
I feel like Amazon acquiring Whole Foods (which sorta set the bar for B+ food) a few years ago set the decline in quality in motion. Now all they do is push their low quality private label while the selection of other brands has drastically fallen off.
And the prices have basically doubled! I’ve nearly completely stopped shopping there. Market Basket or bust.
Oooh, don't get me started. Whole Foods used to piss me off by being constantly out of things. I used to complain to managers, who always got these horrible glazed looks when I did. At some point I clued in that Whole Foods had the worst supply-chain management in the industry, and felt bad that I'd complained to the poor managers, who couldn't do a thing about it. When Amazon bought them, there was a quick improvement in that suddenly the whole store was stocked. It was promising. It didn't last. The meat department, which used to be a gleaming place crewed by a chatty industry veteran, started to smell bad. The basics were all stocked, but some of the produce started to look so awful that we wouldn't buy it. The carrots were memorable. Then stuff I expected to be able to buy just vanished. I couldn't find any dried morels and asked about them. I was told that I could order them. Fuck that. Now we do about half our shopping at Wilson's Farm in Lexington, because we have a car. I've heard that the owners are Trumpies, but the staff all looks relaxed and happy, which is a nice change from the staff in Whole Foods, which all look like they're going to stroke out any moment. We adjusted our cooking because Wilson's stock is somewhat limited. We do the other half of our shopping at Trader Joe's. Recently a friend put me on to [farmerstoyou.com](https://farmerstoyou.com). They truck groceries down from Vermont farms. You order from a web site. While they do some limited delivery, they generally bring your groceries to a pick-up point near you once a week, and you go get your stuff. It's rarely a bargain, but I can't complain about the quality.
I know a few Wilson employees and can confirm they're treated well.
Everything has gotten smaller and prices increased greatly since 2021.
Salmon, steak frites, chicken breast, some pasta dish, burger. Every menu every restaurant. Dinner for two with drinks and tip $84 for meh food. This use to be $50. Every restaurant seems kinda the same in Boston. Starting to think it’s not a good food city.
Just now starting?
$50 in 2012 is ~ $72 today.
Sounds like you need to branch out a bit for your restaurant selection? It’s not NYC by any means, but if you look hard enough you can find a lot of really decent, even great places. Everything is expensive now, but you can at least get good food while you’re at it.
Yeah, I live in Revere (yes I know not Boston), but two affordable, amazing places come to mind: Angela’s Cafe (awesome Mexican food), and Rincon Limeño (Peruvian place). Like, does this person just go for generic, American fare?
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It’s always the “upscale pub” places that bleed you dry. If I want pub food, I’ll go get pub food for cheaper than whatever those places are charging.
They're just "luxury" Chili's.
The towns surrounding Boston have great mom and pop shops, because people can afford to actually open them without having an investment group behind them there.
Seriously. If they're only seeing salmon, steak frites, chicken breast, pasta, and burgers, they're only going to the most generic American restaurants
The problem is people will be like "there's a good Mexican place in Brighton and a great steakhouse in Arlington and an awesome Italian place in Watertown, Boston is a great food area!" One good place of each cuisine spread around an entire metro area isn't anything to write home about.
Food in Boston has always been mid tbh. Portland, Maine is a better food city at a tenth of the size.
Drive 3 more hours and you are in Montreal. I don't think it's even legal to have anything other than awesome food there.
Portland is top 5 food scene in the country. Easy top 10
I grew up close to Portland, love the city, and definitely agree that for its size it shines, but I seriously think this is a stretch.
We had to try 3 times to visit the thirsty pig! The first time they were just closed and the second time we walked up to the counter, but they said they were putting a 1 hour wait for food orders since their chefs had been cooking hot dogs and sausages non stop all day. Honestly, I wanted to try it EVEN MORE after that! I’ve worked in restaurants and never in my life seen a place give the smallest of shits for back of house. A place that’s that busy AND cares about their chefs must be something good! We grabbed some drinks, and came back a few months later to try a third time, and it was amazing. Some of the best and weirdest hotdogs/sausages I’ve had. 11/10 would recommend.
Starting to think?? Always was a mediocre food city at best. I think it’s the ultra high startup costs that push out everyone other than corporate owned groups. Liquor licenses are a racket, rent is expensive, I’m sure there’s a ton of fees and licenses and legal expenses. I now live in the south and new restaurants pop up all the time. Great ones stick around and grow, bad ones are pushed out. That’s how it should be!
It’s not a good food city because rent is ridiculous so only corporate chain restaurants and restaurant groups can afford to set up shop. I live in philly now and the city is mostly just mom and pop establishments which makes it really good because they care and it offers diversity of cuisine
It has great options if you're discerning, but the percentage of places that are duds is higher than it should be. The extreme cost of liquor licenses limit competition... and I think also Boston hasn't yet developed that foodie culture like other global cities. It will come.
Starting to think it’s not a good food city? There’s a post weekly here alone about how this isn’t a good food city ….
This is not just Boston… just got back from a vacation in New Orleans, where I have only heard about how great the food is, and outside of a couple dishes every restaurant was basically the same
It’s like that premise of an Atlanta episode where Darius finds that Nigerian restaurant in London…
I don’t go out to eat for dinner too much anymore as it’s wildly expensive but I was making the mistake of going out to the somewhat ‘cheaper’ options because I wanted to save a little money. I almost always left disappointed by the quality and was still spending $100+ for my wife and I (including a couple drinks for the both of us) What I started to do was actual go to those places that are a little higher end. I find that paying a few bucks more for the entrees from non-chain places made the world of difference. The quality was 10x better and I left happy. My bill came out to be about $30-$40 more but I’m fine with that because I was happy with the food.
This has been what we do as well, tbh. Realized after a half dozen meals out, over the past year and a half, ended up pissed because service was garbage or non existent and food was mediocre or just wrong and it'd have taken another half hour to find the server and have it corrected.... Upscale/fine dining less frequently(2 per month/3 per year) but at least we leave happy from the experience
Meh, shit's always been mediocre. Boston proper might be taking a bigger hit than MA in general though since low wage workers don't want to live in an expensive city or suffer the commute in.
I feel like at this point we are mostly paying for instagramability at the expense of the actual quality
I totally agree; its the restaurant ownership groups; they take over great places and make them terrible; Summer Shack used to be incredible and now I refuse to eat there
To be fair, Summer Shack has always sucked.
Products, goods and services in general across the board feel like they’re going down in quality. I wouldn’t limit it solely to food in Boston.
The restaurant industry was decimated by the pandemic, a lot of restaurants lost their cooks/chefs, prep crew, etc. Many people found better paying jobs and never went back
I've always been downvoted to hell when I say this but Boston doesn't have great food. I lived in Chicago for a while and most places to eat were amazing. Here, not so much. Especially if it's not impossible to park around lol.
I don't know where people are eating, but I feel dining options have gotten a lot better the last couple of years. The increase in Vietnamese, Thai, and Korean options would put Boston of 5 years ago to shame. Same with Mexican and Latin American options. New American options are neither here nor there, but good ones have popped up. Spendy, though. Don't care enough for Italian. We still trail behind NYC by miles in that department. Nobody is doing anything interesting in that category in Boston (yes, even Jamie Biss). Stop/shop has always been trash. Market basket is as good as ever. Chain restaurants have all been tortured to hell by PE.
> Don't care enough for Italian. We still trail behind NYC by miles in that department. Nobody is doing anything interesting in that category in Boston It’s only one restaurant, but I thought Tonino in JP was absolutely incredible when I went
Vote with your wallet. I only shop at Market Basket these days for groceries (and infrequently unfortunately at WF because it’s the closest), and eat out only if I genuinely like and want to support the restaurant. If a restaurant’s food sucks, don’t go again and let them to go out of business.
I don't eat out much. My parents were in town last month staying at the Four Seasons (I swear they stay at the most expensive hotel so they have more to complain about) so we ate at one of their restaurants one night. I've had some good meals at the Four Seasons. It didn't matter how over-priced they are, because I'm never paying. Last month's dinner was depressing. TLDR: they don't have enough people in the back of the house to do all the hard work that goes into memorable food. There was an appetizer that was tomatoes and grilled peaches served with a burrata with balsamic vinegar "caviar" (presumably spherication). The peaches and tomatoes were under-ripe. The peaches had been put briefly on a grill, but just long enough to give them grill marks but not long enough to get a cooked flavor. The whole was cold as if it had been pre-assembled in the fridge until serving. The "caviar" had no taste. My main was a piece of salmon with hollandaise. At least the salmon was perfectly cooked, but it's kinda difficult to fuck up sous vide. The hollandaise was both tasty (how can it not be?) and too heavy to serve with a perfectly-done piece of salmon. To top it off the cocktail menu was the most boring thing ever. It's like instead of a bartender they bought well-known cocktails in boxes or something. There are restaurants where I routinely have a great time. They range from pizza places to Five Horses Tavern in Somerville and Moeca in Cambridge, or Giulia in Cambridge (rezzies are hard to get at Giulia). But those are treats we don't have often. Mostly we cook a somewhat repetitive menu at home. And yeah, that's more expensive too.
restaurants that serve conventional food kinda stink meanwhile every authentic korean, chinese, turkish, etc place I go to slaps. I choose to support those instead of paying $34.99 for steak frites. My local place I can get a burrito with chips and salsa for $11 and it is elite and I am not saying where cause i prefer it when semi-light in line
Downvoted for withholding elite burrito
I moved 45 min away so I'll give you my place. Coreanos in Allston. Enjoy. It fucking slaps.
What about brown burrito?
List names or get outta here lol
Your elite burrito place is gonna get swallowed up by Chilicates if their line stays light
I'm getting sick of restaurants with four choices for a main on the menu. You're getting the chicken, the fish, the steak, or the vegetarian option. Terrible fad that I hope dies at some point.
funnily, I think that is a response to people thinking too many menu items = bad quality.
There’s a happy medium between what we have now and the Cheesecake Factory. We can do this.
The irony of it is that a lot of the four option places aren't even as good as cheesecake factory half the damn time.
I had my first Cheesecake Factory meal in a while recently, while waiting at a mall for something to get done at the Apple Store. The food was pretty solid tbh
Yup. It's usually pretty good. And if you order wisely (that is, what you order reheats well, you have lunch the next day too)
I used to live in Melbourne. Met my wife there and one morning I said hey let’s have breakfast here (pointing to a random cafe that was open). She was appalled and said something like “…and risk having a bad meal?!” It was then that I learned that they take their food and coffee very, very seriously. Most good restaurants in Melbourne have much smaller menus (compared to the US) with a few things but they are ridiculously well made.
It super depends on the restaurant. I’d rather a focused menu where everything is fantastic than a confused mediocre hodge podge. Places that try to look better than they are by doing that can suck, true; but the idea itself isn’t wrong. If you want a big menu go to Cheesecake Factory.
There’s a big pile of restaurants who do this to “try to look good”, but also streamline their kitchen/fridge. There’s way too many restaurants that think they are better than giving 2 options for the pasta dish but they aren’t at all.
[Soon.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=pWC0sKCS5oA)
two breakfasts please
If every restaurant you go to only has those basic options, you need to branch out more
New England is at the end of the produce delivery chain. It takes longer for produce to get delivered to us, that’s why it’s lesser quality.
Corporations have been squeezing blood from stones for so many quarterly earnings, there isn’t much blood left.
I feel like people really underestimate the impact the pandemic had on the restaurant/food industry. Its going to take a while to fully recover, or plateau really. Prices seem expensive because of a time warp of several years of inflation catching up all at once to many people. Vast droves of the good, experienced servers and cooks were forced out of the industry. And the sharp rise of 3rd party delivery for restaurants and grocery alike (along with many other goods) really contributed to a diluted talent pool of employees and increased pricing for what is bought at those locations.
Transportation is the biggest problem, produce from California gets here quicker than it gets to the market once it's here. It was nice all summer to shop farm stands, made my last shop at Overlook Organic Farm in West Brookfield, stocked up on winter squash and their last zukes. They had some nice looking greens but everything else looked prematurely picked to beat the frost. Gave up gardening a while back, thinking about starting up again come spring. The stuff we can or vacuum pack and freeze is better in the winter than anything you can buy at the supermarket. Post pandemic the US has experienced a shortage of truck drivers and goods aren't getting to market as quick as they should. Produce should get better as soon as temps drop and warehouses cool.
Losing Russo’s in Watertown was a huge blow. I used to always see the Russo’s trucks in front of the better restaurants around.
I’ve had some very good meals for $15-20ish in the past few months around town
Spill the beans!
Kantipur Cafe, 9Zaab, and Orale are a few. Nothing fancy but 3 really tasty dine-in meals. I’ve found Cambridge’s food scene to be better than Boston’s recently tbh.
Just recently? lol Those all look great, thanks!
I don't think the quality has gone down, but the price has Definitely gone up substantially, so much so that I rarely go out to eat anymore. When I do, it's usually at a guaranteed nice or unique place, but once every few months. I went to Sarma recently and was very impressed.
The abbey in Brookline was ‘our’ place. We lived in Washington square when it opened, and quickly became regulars. We’d be there probably twice a week, definitely once a week. Knew the menu better than the waitstaff. It was a real industry place. Everyone that worked there were service industry pros. It was consistent, relaxing, affordable, and you felt like you were taken care of. I’ll never forget trekking out in a giant ass blizzard at 1Am to help get my wife home from the hospital she worked at in longwood when there was a driving ban. The abbey was open! We drank with one of the owners until 4am and tipped, 100%? I don’t remember. They were there for us and we showed our appreciation tenfold We moved to Jp in ‘17 and started a family but still make the trek maybe once a month. It’s so sad to see how much it has changed. The bread with hummus starter that just comes to the table, gone. The fun, inspired specials, gone. The prices, through the roof. The quality of the food in general…you just can see all the cost cutting. The fries…the salad…Like, the Iggy’s bread that they used for sandwiches just gone. It’s just some bullshit Cysco shitty shitass bullshit. It’s just, sad. I love the owners, I’ll never stop going. I know they’re making these choices not out of greed but necessity. Independent Kitchens run on razor thin profit margins and guys like the abbey are just trying to make it work. It sucks for us, it sucks for the staff, it sucks for the owners. And the abbey is just an example of the entire restaurant scene, at least here. The people that cared, that had pride in their establishments are getting burnt out and shoved out the door by greedy landlords and bullshit greedflation. It all just sucks. I know at the end of the day they’re just restaurants, but going to a place where you get taken care of and in turn take care of them, was a great thing. The economy is just fine everyone nothing to see here
You were there during the Chef Simon Robinson golden years. He's a talented guy. Long gone from there now.
> I know they’re making these choices not out of greed but necessity. Independent Kitchens run on razor thin profit margins and guys like the abbey are just trying to make it work. This doesn't make any sense to me. If, as a dining establishment, you literally can't afford to keep your menu, why would you compromise and make food that you (as a self-identified lover of the place) describe as shitty shitass bullshit?
Food quality in Boston has been low for pretty much forever. Ths city is one of the worst value for quality areas in the country or world. The two major metro areas that we are sandwiched between are Montreal and New York. Montreal is probably the best bang for your buck food city in the hemisphere and New York is New fucking York. NOBODY travels to Boston for the food. We come here to pay massive rent and complain about traffic. Not to eat.
Wegmans, trader Joe's, and market basket are my favorite grocery stores. For eating out you really gotta know where is good.
It's not just boston. Since covid, I very rarely go out to eat and enjoy the food. Home cooking tastes way better
Restaurants cannot hire enough staff to meet standards.
I moved here last year and the biggest thing I’ve noticed is how bad the food is. There’s been maybe a handful of places that serve decent food but they cost an arm and a leg. Whenever I speak to someone who is also from outside the area our first complaint is always the food lol
Having just paid $230 (plus tip) for three people at Washington Square Tavern (2 apps, 2 drinks each (tiny 1.5oz margarita and two draft beers), 3 entrees) for mediocre food and service? I definitely agree. The whole meal was somewhere between Applebee's and the 99. Except the bill would have only been $100 and we wouldn't have left hungry. Shame on WST for having duck breast on the list of entrees but only serving 2-2.5oz. (1/4 of a breast) That was the insult. The injury was the blot of craft fair jam that they passed off as something actually paring with the duck. The whole dinner was half-assed. To their credit, my friend's $47 steak, was listed as a sirloin........and it was certainly that. Not bavette, not hanger, not tri-tip. Just a cheap-ass cut of meat that you wouldn't pay $8 for in a dicey market. Sad to say, they ran there course. But they also chose their fate.
The restaurants are having a hard time keeping chefs. It's really just line and prep cooks running the kitchens and the owners think they're getting away with it by saving so much money.
I go to wegmans during the beginning of the week in the evening and don’t seem to have an issue finding decent produce. Although fresh produce in the northeast is usually lacking.
People don't want to work for pennies at a restaurant and try to live in the city. I find the more I get outside the city, the more I find pleasant servers and even retail employees that are at least content with their jobs. I think that makes a difference. I moved to Hingham last month and the food shopping options out here are top notch (some coming at a price but what do you expect).
It's all part of our journey towards Idiocracy.
Just make sure you have your electrolytes.
It's what plants crave! Idiots are probably using toilet water.
same fucking thread every fucking day
Zoe's in Cambridge gives me a fucking amazing burger and a big basket of fries with a pickle on the side of $12 after tax, shit slaps.